I went on holiday to UKRAINE – I fled £7-a-night hostel during air raid siren on first night…but it didn't spoil my trip

The Sun

28-05-2025

A BRAVE Brit holidaymaker had an 'incredible' holiday in war-torn Ukraine - despite harrowing air raid sirens forcing him to take shelter in the subway.
Daring tourist Adam Smith stayed at a £7-a-night hostel for five days in the capital Kyiv - and now says he "can't wait to go back" there.
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He embarked on the trip while Vladimir Putin 's Russia continued to pummel Ukrainian cities with devastating drone blitzes and air strikes as part of his bloody invasion.
32-year-old Adam first had to fly to Krakow, Poland, before taking a gruelling 10-hour train to arrive at his budget hostel in the city centre.
But moments after getting some shut eye, Adam was suddenly woken by a chilling air raid siren.
He had to rush to the nearest subway to escape Putin's brutal strikes.
The Northampton man told Luxury Travel Daily: 'The air raid siren went off when I was just drifting off.
'I knew I'd hear it at some point because it's pretty much every night.
He continued: 'It was about 11pm and I could hear it in the distance.
'I didn't know what to do but I went to the shelter."
The intrepid tourist detailed that his experience felt "very real" - and explained that he felt more excited than scared.
He described the shelter that him and hundreds of other locals had to take refuge in during the overnight air attack.
Adam said: 'We were all the way at the bottom of the subway. There were around 500 people.
'The atmosphere is really hard to describe.
'It felt like when you do a minute's silence, there was just quiet anticipation waiting for the all clear or get bombed."
He also told of the worrying fact that 'a lot of people don't bother going to the shelter because they're really bored of it".
Adam even described his fatigue of bloodthirsty Putin's constant attacks.
'By the end of the trip, I couldn't be bothered,' he said.
The bold holidaymaker said the sirens blared three times a night during his trip.
Adam's family begged him not to go on the trip but his friends weren't surprised.
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He said: 'I've always wanted to go, even before the war, but the war has gone on for so long.
'Some people say there's no war and other people say Ukraine is destroyed. There's definitely a war."
The whole trip set Adam back £250 - with a return flight from London Luton Airport to Poland costing just £40.
From there, the return train from Krakow to Kyiv was £80.
Adam took about £100 to spend, and said that the most expensive activity was a war-themed tour which cost £200.
He also described Ukraine: "It was quite grey, I'm not sure if that was the war or the winter.
'There weren't many tourists.'
But the keen traveller is already making plans to go back to Kyiv in summer, and said that he "loved" the city.
'The people were helpful and the food was good," he said.
'I went on a tour of occupied cities that Russia had been pushed out of and that was interesting,' Adam added.
It comes after mad Putin launched Russia's biggest air assault on Ukraine yet which killed three siblings as well as 10 others during a gargantuan blitz over the weekend.
The three tragic children were siblings from the same Martyniuk family and named as Roman, 17, Tamara, 12 and Stanislav, aged eight.
Nato scrambled fighter jets after Russian forces launched 367 missiles and drones in the largest single attack since the start of the war in 2022.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Air Force, said Moscow used a mix of 69 ballistic and cruise missiles and 298 drones, including Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
It was the most massive strike in terms of the number of air attack weapons on the territory of Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ihnat said.
The Foreign Office advises against all travel to parts of Ukraine.
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